Realist Decries 'Unrealism', Delusional Idiocy

I’ve had, and continue to have, plenty of respect (and occasional disagreement) with conservative commentator George Will, who in today’s Washington Post (“The Triumph of Unrealism”, A13) is right on the money about the recent MI-5 disrupt of the liquid-bomb plot.

He writes:

“Cooperation between Pakistani and British law enforcement ... has validated John Kerry’s belief ... that ‘many of the interdiction tactics that cripple drug lords, including governments working jointly to share intelligence, patrol borders and force banks to identify suspicious customers, can also be some of the most useful tools in the war on terror.’”

Will adds that “a ‘senior administration official’ ... denied the obvious, that Kerry had a point,” informing the radical Weekly Standard that, with a straight face,

The idea that the jihadists would all be peaceful, warm, loveable, God-fearing people if it weren't for U.S. policies strikes me as not a valid idea. [Democrats] do not have the understanding or the commitment to take on these forces. It’s like John Kerry. The law enforcement approach doesn’t work.”

As the staid, reasonable columnist concludes, “This farrago [wtf?] of caricature and non sequitur makes the administration seem eager to repel all but the delusional. But perhaps such rhetoric reflects the intellectual contortions required to sustain the illusion that the war in Iraq is central to the war on terrorism, and that the war, unlike ‘the law enforcement approach,’ does ‘work.’

“The official is correct that it is wrong ‘to think that somehow we are responsible - that the actions of the jihadists are justified by U.S. policies.’ But few outside the fog of paranoia that is the blogosphere [hey!] think like that. It is more dismaying that someone at the center of government considers it clever to talk like that. It is the language of foreign policy — and domestic politics — unrealism.”

(I don’t appreciate the cheap swipe at bloggers, but then again some among us can reach heights of paranoid fantasy at times, on any range of topics. We’re not robots, Bow-tie.)